A Mass Effect Christmas Story
by Blackdeer7
Summary: Yep. Another holiday story comes your way. It takes place while the Normandy SR-1 crew is on the hunt for Saren. Some highlights - Shepard is a scrooge, Liara is naïve, Tali is creative and Wrex is still krogan. Amusing antics ensue. :)


**Author's Note:**

This is a tribute to the various Christmas specials, movies, TV shows and stories I've seen and/or read over the years that have poked a little fun at the holiday. Blame the cold weather and snow dusting the land around me for this focus of inspiration. There are some old, new and –dare I say - traditional jokes woven within the fic, so hopefully one or more will bring you some holiday cheer.

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A Mass Effect Christmas Story – Chapter 1

Commander Shepard marched her way from the Embassy suites toward the Alliance docking bay. Although it was December 22nd – by the Earth standard calendar – the Spectre was anything but jolly. Her crimson Mercenary X armor may even have been considered festive, but the scowl on her face and irritated demeanor of her body language created an imposing sight to behold. Especially since she was muttering to herself while repeatedly smacking her right fist into her open left palm.

"Unbelievable..." Grumbled the Spectre. "How many Council members does it take to change a light bulb?"

_*Smack*_

In a high-pitched voice, she replied to herself. "I don't know Shepard. How many _does_ it take?"

_*Smack* _

Returning to her surly "I've-just-met-with-the-Council-tone", she laid out the punch line. "None, ya blithering idiot! They consider themselves so enlightened that they don't mind sitting in the dark."

_*Smack*_

By the time the Spectre reached the docking bay, it was early in the evening and she had sufficiently calmed down from her meeting with the Citadel Council. At least enough that she was no longer smacking her fist and muttering under her breath. The _Normandy's_ repair crews were hard at work on the outer hull, so the Spectre slowed her stride, taking a moment to observe their progress. The sight of the frigate always had a soothing affect on her mood and while her eyes slipped over its graceful shape, a subtle, doting smile adorned her lips. She took in a deep, cleansing breath and slowly exhaled... then her eyes narrowed and the smile turned into a menacing frown. The commander had spotted three new, unofficial, non-Alliance protrusions on her ship – a large, red, bulb-like shape affixed to the nose of the frigate and two antler-like antennas on the top of the hull. She knew immediately who to blame.

"Williams," she growled.

In a flash, the commander headed in the direction of the frigate's airlock door. Once inside the ship, she set off toward the elevator. _Christmas or not, the Normandy is NOT a reindeer. And "hood ornaments" are not allowed!_

"Shepard!"

The Spectre angrily spun around, and gazed upon a familiar sight. "Garrus, what's up?"

"Tali and I need your help."

The Spectre sighed heavily. "My help? Can it wait? I've got an ass-chewing to give."

"It's important. We really need your input."

"With what?"

"It's easier to show you rather than tell you." The turian motioned for her to follow him. "Come on."

Rolling her eyes in exasperation, the dark-haired human quietly muttered, "Hellfire…"

Garrus led the Spectre down to the Mess, but as she stepped through the threshold of the group dining area, sparkling objects caught her eye, stopping her dead in her tracks.

"What the hell?" she said through her teeth.

Earlier that morning, before meeting with the Council, she'd had breakfast in the large room and it had looked normal. Gun-metal grey walls, a long picnic-like table to eat at, a small kitchenette for the crew to heat up their rations or cook if they had spent creds on real ingredients. Now though, the room looked like something out of a Norman Rockwell Christmas print. A large, fake fir tree adorned with white lights, silver garland and various shapes, colors and sizes of ornaments stood in the far corner of the room – wisely on the opposite side of the kitchenette. Multicolored strings of lights had been hung up around the room, giving the space a surreal feel as the prismatic hues reflected off the metal walls.

Gritting her teeth in annoyance, Shepard grumbled, "Alenko."

The Spectre finished following Garrus over to the kitchenette where Tali was busying herself with an odd looking mechanical apparatus that consisted of three metal pots – one of which was being heated by a gas burner – and various metal piping that connected them all together in a perplexing tubular web. To Shepard the tangled contraption looked suspiciously like a still.

"What's going on here?" she questioned.

"Tali and I wanted to better understand some human customs surrounding Christmas. We came across a traditional drink called eggnog, so naturally we decided to replicate it."

The Spectre shook her head in exasperation, "Naturally. And this doohickey?"

Tali looked up from her work behind the large, pieced together machine. "It's for scientific purposes only, Shepard. I'll dismantle it as soon as the experiment is over."

"Yes, I'm sure you will." The tone of her voice made it perfectly clear that the still would be removed from her ship. Pronto. It was bad enough that the humans on-board were going out of their way to disrupt the _Normandy_ with their holiday antics, but to have the non-human crew join in as well was overkill. "So why do you need my help?"

Garrus walked over to the intricate still and from its faucet poured the contents into a coffee mug. "We need a human to taste test it."

"What about Williams?" Taste-testing the unorthodox brew would be an ideal avenue of punishment for the reindeer décor.

"Ashley said she is a flexitarian."

"A what?"

"A vegetarian who sometimes consumes meat products."

"How convenient for her…"

"In this case, she said she couldn't drink any without violating her personal beliefs."

"Which are?"

"That it would make her sick."

The commander rolled her eyes in disbelief. "Sick, indeed. I think I'm going to be sick right now. And Alenko?"

"He said he was something called… lactose intolerant."

"That was cured over a hundred years ago!" Shepard said incredulously.

"He mentioned something about his L2 implant causing …"

"Oh bloody hell! Just give me the damn eggnog. I swear if you were half as creative while still in C-Sec, Saren would already be behind bars!"

Garrus' facial plates moved into a shape that could only be considered a turian form of a smile and then handed the cup to the commander.

Eyes squinting, she examined the concoction suspiciously, and then commented, "It's green."

"Yeah. We tried to give it that off-white color, but neither of us liked it, so we made it green." Stretching both arms out as though to encompass the room the turian happily stated, "Goes better with the décor."

Nonplussed, Shepard said, "Green is also the color of mold."

"According to Dr. Chakwas, your first wonder drug – penicillin, came from mold."

"So do respiratory illnesses and allergies."

"You know for the first human Spectre you're not very brave." Chuckling, Garrus added, "Just drink the damn thing, Shepard. If something happens to you, the medbay is two meters away. Tali will drag you."

"Thanks, Garrus. Nice to know you've got my back."

"Anytime, Shepard."

Sighing reluctantly, the human said a silent prayer, took a tiny – tiny sip, and her eyes widened in amazement. "Holy crap… this is actually good." She took another sip – this time scrutinizing its flavor. "It really has alcohol in it?"

Tali had been listening to their conversation, so she answered. "It really does."

"She was up all night engineering the drink."

"Engineering?" said Shepard with a worried eyebrow raised. "What do you mean by _engineering_?"

At that very moment, a large group arrived in the Mess – Ashley, Wrex, Kaidan, Dr. Chakwas, Joker and Liara. They all appeared to be in a heated discussion, but the Spectre couldn't hear any details because her attention had been drawn in by the asari who was the last to enter the room. Deep, blue eyes had ensnared her with their mesmerizing tranquility. In quiet moments such as this – when their eyes lingered on each other a bit longer than necessary – Shepard felt the uncomfortable sensation of her stomach dropping into oblivion.

"Commander!" said Ashley who set down two plates of assorted Christmas cookies on the dining table. "You're just the person we've been looking for."

Shaken out of her reverie, Shepard scowled and turned toward the Gunnery Chief. "What a coincidence, I was looking for you, too. What the hell is on my ship's hull?"

Immediately, the gunnery chief's stance became a little straighter and her face more stoic. "It's just a little Christmas spirit, ma'am. To raise the crew's morale while we're docked at the Citadel."

Dr. Chakwas stepped forward and added, "It's the dreadful bane of the holiday, Commander – the crew misses their families. The colorful decorations and revelry help them feel less isolated while out in the middle of space. Being reminded of the spirit of goodwill has the unique ability to make everyone feel more connected to home."

"We were just trying to help," said Kaidan. "Add a little levity to our lives for a day or two. Chasing Saren has really taken its toll on everyone, Commander." Feeling as though he was a kid who had just been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, he mumbled, "I'll make sure the antlers and red nose are removed before we leave space dock."

Shepard nodded curtly and then groused under her breath, "Santa has little elf helpers and I have holiday minions." In an attempt to forget her annoyance, the Spectre's eyes searched for Liara's, but the asari had turned her gaze to the floor.

"Alright, since we're all here," said Ashley, who had raised her voice to address the group, "we need to figure out a way to choose our Secret Santas." The Chief had explained the finer points of the gift giving ritual to the non-humans while the commander was in her meeting with the Citadel Council.

A "kill me now" sigh escaped Shepard's lips as her right hand palmed her face and her body sank to a seated position on a bench near the dining table.

Tali looked up from behind the still. "I could build a random name generator."

Frowning slightly, Liara turned her head toward the group and asked, "Would it not be more prudent to match complimentary people to make the gift giving less difficult?"

Garrus piped in, "This can be solved with calibration and numbers. I've got nine numbers in my head and nine letters. You tell me the number and I'll tell you the matching letter."

"Turian numbers and letters?" asked Tali. "It can't be krogan, their alphabet doesn't go that high."

Wrex grunted and then stated in a challenging tenor, "Krogan focus on bloodshed not prose! No one complained about that when the Rachni were clicking at your heels."

"Or we could use the toothpick method," Joker said. He had hobbled over to the cookies and was currently in the process of eating a sugar cookie cut in the shape of a bell. "I'll size nine pairs of toothpicks, everyone gets one size and everyone else picks to match."

"Then you lose the 'secret' part of this," Ashley pointed out.

"You're always so picky. Picky, picky, picky!"

As the group began to argue over the best method of selection, Shepard looked over at Dr. Chakwas and rolled her eyes. Sighing ruefully, the older woman shook her head, walked into her med bay and opened up her desk drawer. While she wrote everyone's name on small, individual pieces of paper, the Spectre paced briskly over to her storage locker.

Liara asked, "Are the letters sequential or the numbers sequential?"

"Both are sequential," said Garrus. "We'll go in order from oldest to youngest."

"Ten," said Wrex.

Ashley huffed. "There is no ten."

"'A' through 'I' and one through nine," Garrus said.

The krogan battlemaster crossed his arms in front of his chest. "Ten."

The med bay doors swooshed open and Chakwas reentered the mess hall with the slips of paper in hand. She walked over to Shepard who had retrieved her environmental helmet and let the slips of paper fall into the protective headgear.

The Spectre cleared her throat to interrupt the group discussion, holding up her helmet which now had all the names in it. "Pick a name," she said, "and if you get your own, put it back in."

Liara looked surprised. "Oh, that could work, too."

"Yeah," said Garrus while nodding, "that's good."

"Good idea, Skipper."

Smiling sarcastically, Shepard said, "That's why I get paid the big bucks, Chief."

The commander proceeded to make her way around the room until everyone had taken a name from the helmet, leaving only one slip of paper for her. She captured the lone scrap and looked at the name: Garrus. _Great. I've got two days to figure out what a turian would like for a Christmas present. _

While the Spectre returned the helmet to her locker, the rest of the crew began chatting and sampling the eggnog and Christmas cookies – except for Garrus and Tali. Their biology was different from the rest of the crew which limited their ability to share in the holiday fare.

"I almost forgot," said Alenko, after spying the turian and quarian standing without a cookie or drink in hand. He stepped over to the kitchenette and knelt down in front of a locked door and then punched a security code into the keypad. When he stood, he handed a large plate of cookies to Garrus and two drink pouches to Tali. "Courtesy of the Normandy Christmas fund. Dextro-protein based food and drink. The shop on the Citadel didn't have anything that resembled Christmas shaped cookies – space ships was all they had."

"Oh look," squealed Tali, "if we arrange them just so…" The quarian spread all of the cookies out on the countertop. "…it will resemble the Flotilla!"

Garrus looked at the scene before him, picked up four of the cookies, took a bite out of each of them and then returned them to their positions on the table. "There. That's more accurate."

The quarian looked at the broken cookies and sighed. "I suppose you are right, Vakarian." Then she slugged him hard in the arm.

Dr. Chakwas, Joker and Ashley had gathered near the Christmas tree in the corner of the room admiring its beauty. Although it was a fake fir tree, the scent coming off of it smelled the same a real one.

The pilot took a tentative sip from his engineered eggnog, nodded his head in approval and then took another long swig. "What Santa Claus is supposed to do is impossible."

"He keeps a list. Checks it twice," replied Ashley. "What's the big deal?"

"There is no way possible he could deliver all of those presents in one night!"

"Yeah, yeah, I know," replied the Chief. "But if you rearrange 'Secret Santa', you get 'Secret Satan'."

"How is that relevant to what I am saying?"

"It's not. It's just more interesting."

Joker shot the soldier a disparaging look and then continued on his rant – completely ignoring her remark. "In order to be possible, Santa would have to park his sleigh, unload presents, fill stockings, eat snacks, get back into his sleigh and onto the next house in about 1/1000th of a second!"

Chakwas glanced at the pilot with subtle amusement in her eyes and then took a hearty sip from her cup of green eggnog. "Do we have to go over this _every_ year, Jeff?"

"With the weight of the presents and the speed that he'd need to travel, the jolly guy would face G forces over 17000G! That's like 3,000 times the speed of sound. Which is totally cool, but crazy and impossible! He'd be nothing more than a splat on the back of his sleigh. Kids have to be stupid to believe that!"

"First of all," reproached the silver-haired doctor, "let me suggest to you that young children are not stupid, they are just children. Second, and I say this on the highest authority, Santa… is magic."

"Maybe the big guy is slipping people _magic_ mushrooms to make them believe he could fly that fast," muttered the pilot.

"What was that, Mr. Moreau? I didn't quite hear you."

"Nothing, Doc." Waving her off, he muttered, "Magic. Sure. That explains it all. Even the red-nosed reindeer and the island of misfit toys."

After securing her locker, the Spectre's gaze spanned across the room and caught sight of Liara staring intently at one of the plates of cookies that Ashley brought. Shepard crossed the distance to the asari and stared at the same plate trying to figure out what was so fascinating.

While still pondering the cookies, she asked, "Trying to figure out which one will be tastier?"

"My research indicates that Christmas has its roots in the human pagan festival of Saturnalia," stated Liara as she turned her head to face the commander, "which is traditionally celebrated by intoxication, naked singing and the consumption of those human-shaped biscuits."

"Actually, they're called gingerbread cookies." Winking playfully at the researcher, the Spectre added, "But the naked singing sounds interesting."

The researcher smiled as blue eyes locked onto green for what seemed like a pleasurable eternity, but then her soft gaze shifted into a hesitant expression. "Commander, may I ask you a question?"

Shrugging her shoulder noncommittally, Shepard said, "Sure. Why not?"

"You do not seem to be enjoying the festivities as much as the others."

"What? No. They're great," said the Spectre through a forced smile. "Really."

The asari remained silent, her eyes studying the dark haired woman before her… who was obviously lying.

Seeing that her contrived answer was less than believable Shepard released a long sigh and then finally admitted, "Christmas has never been a favorite holiday of mine."

"May I ask why?"

The Spectre started to reply, but looked around the crowded room and stopped. "Ask me some other time."

Liara nodded her head in understanding. "Is there anything you do like about it?"

"I like Frosty the Snowman."

"Oh!" exclaimed the asari excitedly. "That is the song about a snowman who comes to life by the placement of a magical hat found by some children."

"Yes, that's the one."

"The children and snowman share some playful adventures before he has to – as the song says – 'hurry on his way'."

"Exactly."

Taking on a logical tone, the researcher explained, "That is most likely a quaint reference to melting, and the ephemeral nature of snowmen."

"You've really put some serious thought into this song."

"On the contrary, Commander, it is just a logical deduction."

"Not for most."

Liara moved over to the still, filled a mug and then stared at the dark green liquid as though debating its palatability. "I find that I am disturbed by the ending though."

"How so?" asked the Spectre. Following behind the asari, she refilled her own mug.

Turning back around to face the human, Liara explained, "At the end of their adventures together, the children are saddened by Frosty's leaving, however, he reassures them by exclaiming, 'I will be back again someday.' It is unclear as to whether or not he upholds this promise, leaving the song on… as you say… a cliffhanger."

Shepard laughed out loud. "Don't worry. He comes back. There's even a vid about it."

"Truly?" The asari's blue eyes were wide in astonishment.

"I'll make sure it finds its way to you before the end of the night."

"Thank you, Commander."

"Anytime, Doctor."

The asari glanced shyly at the Spectre and then took a long drink from her cup. Breathing in deeply, as though gathering her courage, she blurted out, "Shepard?"

The Spectre tilted her head in curiosity. "Yes?"

"There is… something… I'd like to show you. I – ah – I think it may improve your holiday mood."

Her interest immediately piqued, the human said, "Oh?"

"But it is down in the shuttle bay. Do you have time to go down there?"

"Sure, Liara. Give me a few minutes to get out of this armor, then I'll be right with you."

Next up: Chapter 2


End file.
